“Worse than that,” answered Phil, significantly.
By the time the Indians had finished their task and breakfast had been eaten the usual starting-hour had arrived. Two of the wolf-skins were allotted to the guide, who was to leave them at this point, and he set forth on his return journey with them on his back. Rolled in them were the single dried salmon which would form his sole sustenance on the journey, and the cherished pound of tobacco, for which he had been willing to work so hard. In his hand he bore an old flintlock musket that was the pride of his heart, not so much on account of its shooting qualities, which were very uncertain, as by reason of its great length. It was the longest gun known to the dwellers of the Tanana Valley, and consequently the most valuable; for the Hudson Bay Company’s method of selling such guns was to exchange one for as many marten, fox, or beaver skins as could be piled from stock to muzzle when it stood upright.
“I hope the wolves won’t attack his camps,” remarked Phil, as they watched the lonely figure pass out of sight on the back trail.
“But he must. Why, it’s a four-days’ journey to his home.”
“No; one day, one night. Him no stop. Wolf no catch um. Yaas.”
And Kurilla was right, for the Indian would push on over mile after mile of that frozen solitude without a pause, save for an occasional bite from his dried salmon, and a handful of snow to wash it down, until he reached his own far-away home.
Seventeen green wolf-skins formed a heavy sledge-load, especially for the weakened dog-teams; but fortunately Jalap Coombs’s feet were again in condition for walking, and snow on the river was not yet deep. So it was determined to carry them――at least, for the present. On the evening following that of the encounter with the wolves, Phil, leaving the work of preparing camp to the others, unpacked the Eskimo wolf-traps of compressed whalebone that he had procured at Makagamoot. He had twenty of the ingenious little contrivances, and wrapped each one in a strip of frozen wolf-meat that he had saved and brought along for the purpose. When all were thus prepared, he carried them about a quarter of a mile from camp, and then dropped them at short intervals in a great circle about it. He knew the dogs would not stray that far since their experience of the night before, and so felt pretty certain that the traps would only find their way to the destination for which they were intended.